


Never Coming Back

by NammiKisulora



Category: The Mechanisms (Band)
Genre: Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Death to the Mechanisms Spoilers, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, Jonny d'Ville and Nastya Rasputina are Siblings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-12
Updated: 2021-03-12
Packaged: 2021-03-19 12:33:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,385
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29999394
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NammiKisulora/pseuds/NammiKisulora
Summary: She’s just passed the door when she hears something that stops her cold in her tracks – a voice, a voice so achingly familiar she nearly doubles over from the pain. How long has it been since she heard it last? Millennia, at least, far too long to keep track.Nastya finds herself on the same nameless backwater asteroid as Jonny.
Relationships: Jonny d'Ville & Nastya Rasputina
Comments: 16
Kudos: 28





	Never Coming Back

The door to the bar is ajar, light and noise spilling out from it. Nastya grimaces and speeds up her steps; company is the last thing she wants right now. She only had to stop here to refuel and restock some necessities, but with that done, all she wants is to get back to her ship as quickly as possible and take off into the comforting loneliness of space. She’s just passed the door when she hears something that stops her cold in her tracks – a voice, a voice so achingly familiar she nearly doubles over from the pain. How long has it been since she heard it last? Millennia, at least, far too long to keep track.

“ _And you’re not coming back?”_

The confusion, the hurt in his voice had barely stirred anything in her at the time, when her only thought had been to _get away_ , but the memory of it always cuts her like a jagged shard of glass. _Jonny_. She sways on her feet, uncertain of which direction to go in. Is he here alone, or are the others here as well? Jonny shouts something unintelligible again, and Nastya’s nails dig into her palms. She can still just leave, keep going without announcing herself, and he will never know she was there. Even if the others are close by, her ship isn’t far away, and she can probably sneak away unnoticed. But… does she want to?

For centuries, she drifted through space, dying and waking in a never-ending cycle of agony, and what few coherent thoughts she had were only repetitions of the bitter grief that had driven her from the Aurora’s corpse. Then she had been pulled aboard a passing starship, and found to her surprise that she could not face the thought of casting herself back into the void. Thus she had been forced to live again, and live, and live, and live. Sometimes she had found brief companions, but most of the time she had travelled alone, the absence of her family a constant, bone deep ache that never went away entirely. Sometimes she had toyed with the thought of trying to find them, but as soon as she remembered that it would also entail setting foot in the corpse of her love, she’d pushed it away again. To see them, only to leave again, had been too painful even to contemplate.

Nastya takes a deep breath to steel herself, and begins to walk again. She can’t go to him; what’s to say he’d even want to see her after all this time? When she left, she’d tried to tell herself that her absence wouldn’t make much of a difference to the crew, but the look in Jonny’s eyes as he watched her leave had stripped her of that lie.

A loud crash and renewed yelling from inside the bar halts her in her tracks. Jonny’s shouts rises above the others’, and before she knows it, she’s turned back and started walking towards the bar instead. His voice is like a magnet, drawing her towards him. She doesn’t doubt for a second that he’ll kill her, but it doesn’t matter, when she wakes up she’ll tell him – she’ll tell him – she’ll tell him… Tell him what, exactly? But that doesn’t matter either, she thinks as she nears the open door. The ruckus inside has taken on the unmistakable sound of a bar fight, and Nastya almost smiles. Has Jonny ever had a peaceful night of drinking among mortals in his life?

She pauses as she reaches for the door handle, her heart pounding and her mouth dry. Another crash and more yelling spills out, and Nastya pushes the door open to slip inside. Simply joining the fight on his side might buy her some time before he even registers who she is, so she scans the chaos for a glimpse of him.

When she finally spots him, the sight is almost enough to knock the breath out of her. It’s Jonny, no doubt about it, but… She searches his face for that familiar, vicious glee, strains her ears to hear his laughter, a lump of ice forming in her belly when she finds neither. His mouth is set in a grim, tight line, and his eyes are full of cold determination as he carves through the locals with a broken bottle. _He looks so tired_ , she thinks, drawing the knife she’s got tucked in her boot, stabbing at some local idiot who decides to take a swing at her.

Slowly, she fights her way closer to him, her heart clenching as she sees him stab a man in the throat without so much as twitching a muscle in his face. He hasn’t seen her yet, and she’s just about to call out to him when it happens.

He’s face to face with some kid, the broken bottle raised to strike when he suddenly goes still. The bottle slips out of his hand to shatter on the floor, and the kid backs away, suddenly pale. Jonny reaches up to touch the knife jutting out from his chest, a strange expression flickering across his face. Nastya holds her breath without knowing why, her belly suddenly seizing with fear. Then Jonny starts to laugh, a wild, vicious laughter, filled with fierce excitement even as blood sprays from his lips.

Nastya forces her legs to move again, roughly shoving people aside, Jonny’s laughter ringing in her ears. She tries to keep him in her line of sight, but the throng of fighters keep blocking him from view. When she sees him again, he’s dropped to his knees, choking on the blood bubbling from his throat, but still he laughs. He sags, listing to the side, and finally Nastya gets her voice working.

“Jonny!” she screams. “Jonny!”

He coughs once, the laughter finally dying in a strangled wheeze as he slumps to the floor, blood still leaking from his mouth and from his heart. Nastya buries her knife in the belly of some unfortunate sod who staggers into her path and leaves it there, pushing them away; the last obstacle on her way to Jonny. She stumbles to her knees at his side, and she thinks his eyes widen for a fraction of a second before they glaze over and his body goes slack, but she isn’t sure.

“Jonny?” she murmurs, shaking him. One second, two, three – how long does he usually take to regenerate after a wound like this? Not long, she’s sure of that, especially not when there’s still fun and violence to be had… Ten seconds, twenty, a minute. “Jonny, it’s me, it’s Nastya.” Two minutes, three, five, ten. “Aren’t you even going to kill me for staying away for so long?” Fifteen, twenty. Someone rests a heavy hand on her shoulder, pulling at her.

“We’re getting the bodies out, miss, please move aside.”

Nastya pulls her gun.

“He’s my brother, I’m taking him with me!”

The two men who’s been dragging the bodies outside glance at each other, shrug and move on. Nastya takes a deep breath and scoops Jonny into her arms, staggering as she gets to her feet. Was he always this light? He was never a big man, but his loudness and brash personality always made him seem larger than he was. Without his, his body seems so fragile and small.

She carries him back to her ship, hoping all the while that he’ll wake up and punch her in the face, but he never does. He’s stopped bleeding, but the sticky, drying blood covering him soaks into her clothes as she holds him close to her, in a mockery of an embrace. When she gently lays him down on the extra cot in her small spaceship, his head lolls to the side and she realises with a jolt that his eyes are still open. Her hand trembles as she closes them, and tears sting at the corner of her eyes. He looks so peaceful, and it’s utterly, utterly _wrong_.

“Jonny?” she tries, one last time. Her voice cracks as she softly slaps his cheek. “Jonny, wake up. I’ve missed you so much.”

But Jonny doesn’t move, and Nastya sinks down with her back to the cot and cries, aching with the unfairness of the universe.

**Author's Note:**

> Kudos and comments mean the world to me <3


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